A large hand with distinct knuckles pressed down on Yu Jiu’s shoulder, the veins on the back of his hand bulging as he forced apart the intimate distance between Yu Jiu and the magician.
This time, Lu Shiyue restrained his strength, making sure not to hurt Yu Jiu.
Like a kitten being lifted by the scruff of its neck, Yu Jiu was pulled back into Lu Shiyue’s territory in the blink of an eye.
It was an intensely intrusive gesture, paired with the red-haired man’s arrogant and provocative gaze that matched his hair color. The magician merely smiled, seamlessly withdrawing the hand that had wanted to touch Yu Jiu, and turned to walk away.
He saw no need to lower himself to compete with someone who was already out of the game and had no chance left.
Completely oblivious to the unspoken clash between the two men, Yu Jiu turned his gaze toward Lu Shiyue, utterly baffled as to why the man had yanked him away for no apparent reason.
Lu Shiyue pressed his thin lips into a tight line, his entire body rigid and his sharp, furrowed brow knotted as though a heavy block of stifled air was trapped in his chest, refusing to dissipate.
Is he about to lose his temper at me again?
Yu Jiu wanted to pull away from Lu Shiyue’s touch. The man’s hand resting upon his slender, fragile shoulder crossed the boundaries of social distance, and the intimate contact sent an indescribable, bizarre sensation rippling through him.
Sensing the slight shifting motion of the shoulder beneath his hand, Lu Shiyue noticed that the little mute seemed terrified of him. Yu Jiu would lift his gaze to look at him only to drop it right back down, his eyelashes trembling with helplessness as they veiled the shimmering, rippling light in his eyes.
The person in his hands was exceptionally fragile, so delicate that even his breathing was light. He had never faced someone so utterly incapable of withstanding a blow.
Yet, as if burned, he abruptly released his grip.
He couldn’t afford to make Yu Jiu unhappy.
His lips twitched as he fought for words. Lu Shiyue had plenty he wanted to say, but any words on the verge of escaping his mouth were forcefully swallowed back down—he had no standing whatsoever to say such things.
He wanted to apologize, yet couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth and beg for Yu Jiu’s forgiveness.
And even if he were forgiven, what position would he hold? No matter what, Yu Jiu’s eyes would never contain him.
With the heavy weight lifted from his shoulder, Yu Jiu brushed aside his stray locks of hair. At that moment, he heard 091 suddenly chuckle a few times inside his head.
091 was dying of laughter over Lu Shiyue’s internal monologue—that pathetic loser behavior of privately engaging in romantic rivalry with literally anyone was simply too much for it to bear, and it burst out laughing.
“091, what are you laughing at?”
Yu Jiu felt a bit curious; the system usually avoided speaking up for fear of disrupting his mission.
“Baby, I just watched a funny video and accidentally laughed out loud.”
Yu Jiu shifted his focus away from Lu Shiyue. He had only zoned out for a brief moment when Lu Shiyue’s deep, low voice sounded right beside his ear.
“Let’s go.”
Just two words, devoid of any discernible emotional change, yet he acutely sensed the man’s inexplicably gloomy mood at the moment.
Ever since bringing him back to the hotel yesterday, this guy had been acting weird.
As a minor cannon fodder character, there was no need for him to try and decipher the moods of the primary roles; he just needed to obediently play his part as cannon fodder.
As the night grew deeper, the fog along the lakeshore grew increasingly thick, obscuring the path ahead.
The players had long since dispersed to carry out their tasks individually; grouping together at a time like this would only make them prime targets for monster attacks.
Everything around them was deathly quiet. Aside from the sound of their own footsteps, they could faintly hear the fluttering wings of birds and beasts in the forest, alongside the rhythmic lapping of lake water against the shore.
The air was damp, coating Yu Jiu’s exposed arms in a layer of moisture. Thanks to the bracelet Gu Xun had given him, which warded off the chill, he didn’t feel cold.
Lu Shiyue retrieved a lantern from his system inventory. Its warm orange glow blossomed outward, pushing back the encroaching fog ahead and expanding their field of vision by a few meters, allowing them to at least make out the surrounding road conditions.
The lantern also possessed warming properties. Knowing that Yu Jiu was afraid of the cold, Lu Shiyue had deliberately bypassed lanterns with better lighting effects in the fog, opting instead for one that could dispel the chill.
Every now and then, the cute little creatures mentioned by the game would launch attacks along the path.
Yu Jiu caught a clear look at their appearance: they weren’t the dragon-tailed monsters that had dragged him away twice, but rather resembled the bizarre creatures displayed in the museum exhibition halls.
Small in stature, they looked like lizards with coiled tails, yet possessed razor-sharp claws curved like scythes. If they struck a human body, they could carve away massive chunks of flesh.
Yu Jiu noticed that the lizard monsters’ eyes had already degenerated, covered by a grotesque layer of white film as they lunged toward the illuminated circle cast by the lantern.
They were phototropic.
The lizard monsters were numerous in quantity, drawn by the light as they piled densely on top of one another, surging toward the two of them like a tidal wave.
A cluster of flames ignited upon the fingertips of the man standing before him, a red glow wrapping entirely around his body. Immediately afterward, the ground began to tremble.
Before the creatures could even draw close, the ground beneath the lizard monsters’ feet fractured continuously. Intense heat scorched the earth as crimson magma churned upward from beneath the ground, instantly incinerating them into ash.
This was the first time Yu Jiu had ever witnessed Lu Shiyue use his abilities.
The red-haired man’s eyes brewed with a surging, ruthless battle intent. His well-trained muscle lines were smooth, outlining an exceptional physique beneath his button-down shirt. He didn’t need to execute violent physical movements to slaughter the monsters.
He simply stood in place, watching the blazing, boiling magma swallow the monsters one by one as they lunged forward.
Yu Jiu watched the cinematic special effects unfolding before his eyes without blinking. Specks of crimson magma were reflected deep within his pupils, their bright light illuminating his small, snowy-white face.
Recalling the original plotline he had read, he remembered that Lu Shiyue preferred close-quarters combat and rarely used large-scale area-of-effect attacks, frequently claiming that wide-area ability strikes did not align with his self-assigned role within the team.
“Just a peacock spreading its feathers. The baby can just enjoy the fireworks show.”
091 appreciated Lu Shiyue’s fireworks performance, inwardly noting that the man’s peacock-like display of special effects had indeed successfully captivated its innocent baby, who loved shiny, sparkly things.
Well, just standard romantic rivalry tactics.
Lu Shiyue caught sight of Yu Jiu’s sparkling, wide-open eyes, which seemed filled with wonder as they danced with the rhythmic, flickering glow of the flames.
The stifled gloom in his heart dissipated slightly. He even found himself yearning for Yu Jiu to direct that kind of appreciative, dependent expression toward him.
Once the lizard monsters were cleared away, the fog grew a fraction heavier, reducing the effectiveness of the lantern’s light.
Yu Jiu wasn’t walking very fast. Sensitive to environmental shifts, he found the air both humid and cold, his throat and nasal passages filled with damp moisture while droplets clung to his eyelashes.
He raised a hand to touch his cheek, finding the powdery-white skin of his cheek completely damp.
The fog felt as though it wanted to swallow them whole. Taking one heavy and light step after another through the terrain, Yu Jiu was overcome by an unprovoked wave of dizziness.
He fancied he heard the clear, resonant roar of a dragon echoing from the distant, rolling mountains, followed not far away by the churning waters of Dragon’s Breath Lake and the rolling sound of waves ringing right beside his ears.
Drenched as though submerged in water, his mind filled with a jumble of bizarre noises, he dazedly saw Lu Shiyue halt his steps ahead.
The two of them were standing very close. The moment Lu Shiyue stopped, Yu Jiu walked straight into the man’s rock-hard back, instantly leaving a patch of red on his forehead.
Why did he stop suddenly? The dizziness in his mind still undissipated, his delicate, white hand instinctively reached to soothe his forehead when his wrist was suddenly caught and gripped tightly in a firm grasp.
The lantern’s dim, yellowish light grew even dimmer. The rustling, creeping sounds of the lizard monsters faded away, leaving behind only the sound of lake waves crashing against the shore rocks.
Lu Shiyue turned around. Standing against the light, his handsome face was swallowed by the darkness, revealing only his tightly pressed lips and the tense, taut line of his jaw.
Standing close enough, Yu Jiu tilted his head upward, locking eyes with Lu Shiyue. The normally sharp pupils were pitch-black as ink, churning with thick fog rolling up and down within them.
His beast-like eyes were flooded with an intense, overflowing possessiveness and lust.
Deep within those black irises was nothing but Yu Jiu’s bewildered, panicked green eyes.
The scorching-hot palm clasping his wrist gripped him so tightly that he couldn’t budge even a fraction of an inch.
An aberrant aura emanated from Lu Shiyue’s entire body, dark energy swirling around him as though he had been cursed.
“Baby, stay away from him! He seems to be trapped in an illusion.”
091’s anxious voice rang in his ear. Yu Jiu instinctively tried to wrench himself free and run, but it was already too late.
With his strength vastly inferior, he stood no chance of breaking free from the shackles of a man whose physical power dwarfed his own by multiples.
Pinned tightly in place, he couldn’t move an inch.
A breath as scorching as body heat slowly closed down from above, and rough, burning fingertips slid upward from his wrist, rubbing against the delicate skin of his neck.
The sensitive skin grazed by those fingers instantly prickled with a thin layer of red.
Numb and itchy, Yu Jiu felt like a kitten whose lower spine had been tickled, the itch driving him to curl up into a ball right then and there.
The silent, overwhelming pressure closed in. The intense desire burning in Lu Shiyue’s dark eyes threatened to swallow him whole, and the rolling wave of suffocation continuously warned Yu Jiu to flee immediately.
He had no idea what Lu Shiyue intended to do to him, but it certainly wasn’t anything good; the deep lust in the man’s eyes was something he had previously seen only in Ning Jue.
As though the man meant to devour him alive and swallow him into his stomach.
His dense, fan-like eyelashes fluttered up and down. Facing impending doom, Yu Jiu could only close his eyes, though his thin eyelids failed to conceal the panic and fright pooling in his eyes. Like a pitiful little rabbit pinned beneath the sharp claws of a predator, he trembled uncontrollably.
Was he really going to be eaten by someone today?
Catching his panic from above, the man let out a low chuckle. Before Yu Jiu could even analyze Lu Shiyue’s intentions, his mouth was suddenly captured, and a dense, furious storm of kisses crashed down upon him.
His pointed chin was forcibly tilted upward, leaving red marks where he was pinched.
Amidst the humid air, their breath and lips collided, interweaving to vent a billowing wave of heat.
Yu Jiu felt as though he were being steamed alive. His cheeks flushed pink, and the black hair that was already damp clung to the sides of his face, making him look utterly miserable and drenched.
Caught off guard and having his mouth bitten, he instinctively pressed his lips together in defense.
Seemingly unsatisfied with lingering outside the lips, Lu Shiyue used brute force to pry open his clenched teeth, knowing nothing of how to kiss properly.
Finding a gap between his lips, tongue and teeth aggressively forced their way into his warm, damp mouth. Their tongues entangled as Yu Jiu passively endured the ravaging kiss storming inside his mouth.
Lifting the hand that wasn’t being gripped, he planted his single palm flat against Lu Shiyue’s chest, attempting to push him away and widen the distance between them.
His chest felt as hard as a stone, radiating heat far exceeding his own body temperature. Yu Jiu pressed his fingertips until they bloomed with pinkish-red pressure marks, yet those slender, white fingers remained completely powerless against the man’s chest.
His mouth was left completely numb and devoid of strength, the tip of his tongue sucked upon by Lu Shiyue. Yet the man remained unsatisfied, licking and tasting every single inch of his oral cavity like a pervert.
His vermilion lips were crushed and ground together until they turned a bruised, ripened red, looking as though a single touch would cause juice to spill out.
How much time passed—long enough for Yu Jiu to lose the ability to hold back the moisture in his mouth—before Lu Shiyue finally released him.
Even the corners of his lips were not spared, the man lowering his head to lick away the sweet moisture bit by bit.
The hair atop his head felt somewhat prickly. Yu Jiu tilted his head to evade Lu Shiyue’s movements, but the moment he shifted even the tiniest distance away, he was pinned back down by a pair of scorching, large hands.